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Guy Kawaski gives some sage advice and easy to implement tips for small businesses on the eve of 2009.  Many of his items relate to core business operations – sales, support, customer experience, etc.  When you’re in the middle of these items and experience them yourself, you can better understand both what your customer’s needs [...]

It’s hard to believe that 2009 is here. As a New Year’s gift, WebVisbile has developed nine simple tips that can help you develop an effective online marketing strategy for 2009. Snippets below. For the full article, check out the Orange County Register.
1. Do Some Sleuthing
When doing your own shopping, use Internet search engines to [...]

Matt Greitzer points out some key opportunities for search marketers in 2009 in his MediaPost column today.  While he mainly speaks to large, national marketers who wrestle with multi-channel attribution and media mix models, local businesses in many cases have an even bigger challenge when calculating a “true” ROI from their advertising.
I often tell people [...]

Some good reminders from our local Chamber, the Irvine Chamber of Commerce, about why membership in the Chamber is a good investment.  This list describes any good Chamber of Commerce, and how being an active member is a strong local marketing opportunity for any business.  Below is their top 10 list, and my comments under [...]

Once considered a social network for teens and tweens, Facebook has quickly become a viable tool for businesses to connect with customers, network and generate awareness of their products or services. Today, more than half of the visitors to social networking sites are 35 and older, according to a recent industry report issued by comScore. [...]

And by GAP, I’m talking about the Google AdWords Professional exam. I recently took the GAP test and it’s not an easy endeavor. There seemed to be quite a few questions that had multiple correct answers, but you could only choose one! I guess one answer was just “more right” than the others.
I’m not trying [...]

New University, UC Irvine’s university newspaper, recently published an article entitled “Newspapers Lose Business to the Internet, Suffer from Crisis.” They cited several recent statistics that indicate people are turning to digital sources for information now more than ever before.
A few of their stats:
   –  According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, newspaper circulation has [...]

Beverly Crandon reacts to Microsoft’s new survey results about small businesses and adoption of search engine marketing, but calling newspapers to act in providing the link for local advertisers to learn about the value and opportunity that Internet marketing offers. 
I totally agree with Beverly, especially since we’ve worked with dozens of newspaper publishers of all [...]

Guy Kawasaki has a great post on the American Express OPEN Forum this week, and the picture of him with Richard Branson is priceless.  He discusses a chapter from his book about The Art of Customer Service.  Some great reminders in his list.
One of the things that my father ingrained in me from an early [...]

Have you seen the number and variety of tools that Google offers the small business owner to get started with an online advertising program? Below is a list of just some of the tools they offer:
   • Keyword Tool
   • Keyword Traffic  Estimator
   • Site&Category Exclusion Tool
   • Change History Tool
   • Disapproved Ads Tool
   [...]